The Joust Campaign

As I previously mentioned, jousting games can get a bit boring because there is really not much variation in scenarios. There is no difference in terrain or objectives, for example. To keep things interesting, I decided to add a campaign.

I began by searching out some online examples, such as the THW title, Joust: Heroes of the List. I couldn't find what I wanted so I devised my own, very simple campaign.

A campaign will represent one jousting season. It begins with the preliminary tournaments - there are 4 tourneys for each region (North, South, East, and West). The top 4 finishers from each preliminary will move on to the regional tournaments, and from there on to the championship. Each tournament will be single elimination with 16 entrants. I thought about doing a pool stage, like the World Cup, but decided it would be too complicated.

Now, I do not plan to play out every joust. Instead, I will follow the fortunes of my player character, a single jouster. I will play out his jousts to see if he advances. I will randomly determine the abilities of his next opponent (getting progressively harder if he advances). Note that I have been using this Random Knight Name Generator to create his opponent's names.

If my character qualifies for the regionals in an early preliminary, I doubt I will play out the remaining ones. This means that a season could last from a minimum of 4 jousts to as many as 18 or more (if he goes all the way!). I'll roll for my PCs advancement if he wins a tourney or at the end of a season. Advancement allows the character to improve his lance skill, rider skill, or earn more fortune (re-rolls).

So far, I've followed my character, Baldwin, up through the Regional tournament. Next up is the Championship! Not bad for his first season!

A Miniatures Moment
One nice thing about moto-jousting is that I can multi-task with figures. My motorcyclists can also be involved in road wars. However, there are some drawbacks to the figures. They are small so don't photograph well when used singly and the colors don't stand out. This has me considering some miniatures solely for jousts. Pendraken makes some nice mounted knights in 10mm.

From the Pendraken website (link above)

Right now I am resisting because I am trying to maintain a minimalist approach to figure collecting. I don't really want to add one-use figures. Still . . .

Sir Baldwin at the Regionals

More Moto-Jousting

Sir Baldwin arrives at the regional championships nearly breathless with excitement. The pageantry and grandeur of the tournament easily eclipses all the local events with which Baldwin is familiar. His nerves are at a fever pitch.

In his first joust, Baldwin draws a veteran of many jousting seasons. Baldwin gulps; he doesn't know if he can win. On the first pass, however, Alais misses while Baldwin scores a solid hit. He is leading! His nerves begin to settle and his confidence grows. Alais gets on the board in the second pass, but Baldwin maintains his lead. If he can just avoid a solid hit, Baldwin will win.

And on the final pass, Alais misses! Baldwin wins!

	1	2	3	Total
Baldwin	2	2	0	4
Alais	0	2	0	2

Next, Baldwin faces Toby, an average jouster. Both score a light hit in round 1. Baldwin gets a solid hit in the next pass, taking a 1 point lead into the last pass. Toby misses and again Baldwin wins!

	1	2	3	Total
Baldwin	1	2	1	4
Toby	0	2	0	2

Baldwin is now in the semi-finals! His opponent, Robard, is a skilled rider. Fortunately, his lance-work is deficient as he misses in the first 2 passes. Baldwin gets a solid hit, building a 2-0 lead. Alas, Baldwin misses in the final pass, but Robard can only manage a light hit. Baldwin is going to the finals!

	1	2	3	Total
Baldwin	0	2	0	2
Robard	0	0	1	1

Baldwin faces Dame Lunet, another veteran jouster, in the finals. He gets a solid hit but Lunet reciprocates. Baldwin nearly loses his seat! Baldwin misses in the second pass but again Lunet strikes solidly. Baldwin is down by 2 points; he needs Lunet to miss while he gets a solid strike. 

Alas, she is consistent and blasts Baldwin again while he only manages a light hit. Bitter defeat!

	1	2	3	Total
Baldwin	2	0	1	3
Lunet	2	2	2	6

Baldwin is dejected by his loss; he was hoping for jousting glory. But then Hewlett, his mechanic, rushes over, all smiles.

"You did it!" Hewlett cries out.

"I lost." mumbles Baldwin.

"In the FINALS! Don't you get it, dummy? You're going to the Wasteland Championships!"

Baldwin perks up. He had forgotten that. But he really wanted the win.

How will Baldwin do on the grand stage of the Championships? Find out next time!

Sir Baldwin's First Season

A Moto-Jousting Campaign

I am pleased with my simple rules for jousting, but it dawned on me that jousting games could get very boring very quickly because the scenario is essentially the same every time. My solution is to introduce some campaign rules. Saturday I had an opportunity to try them out. Because I don't have any knight figures, I once again used a couple of motorcycles from Microworld's MicroWasteland line.

Setting

Among the corps of Couriers, some drivers have become renowned for their prowess. They can showcase their skills in the various vehicle sports popular among the scattered settlements. One of the most popular is moto-jousting. Drivers from the four corners of the Wastelands compete to see who is the greatest "knight" of all.

Baldwin's Jousts

Young Sir Baldwin, embarking on his first season of moto-jousting, has entered one of the preliminary tournaments.

Baldwin is hopeful because his opponent is also inexperienced, and did not seem too adept in practice rounds. However, the joust starts bad when Baldwin misses in his first pass. He ties the score with a solid hit on the second pass. Alas, he misses again on the final pass, losing 4-2.

	1	2	3	Total
Baldwin	0	2	0	2
Alric	2	0	2	4

His loss eliminates him from the first preliminary tournament. Dejected but determined, he travels across the wasteland to the second tournament.

His first opponent has a reputation as being skilled with the lance. Nevertheless, Baldwin draws first blood with a solid strike. He misses on the second pass, allowing his opponent to close the gap. Baldwin's last pass is a success and he wins his first professional joust!

	1	2	3	Total
Baldwin	2	0	2	4
Beric	0	1	1	2

Baldwin gets lucky and faces another inexperienced foe. He unhorses his opponent on the first pass!

On the second, he gets a solid strike but is also hit. He teeters in his saddle but manages to keep his seat [I used a re-roll to stay on]. Baldwin has a commanding 5-2 lead; he just needs to stay on his "horse" in the final round. Baldwin misses but his opponent does not. However, it is a light hit; not enough to close the gap. Baldwins wins again!

	1	2	3	Total
Baldwin	3	2	0	5
Caradoc	0	2	1	3

Baldwin is now in the semi-finals, which secures him a place in the regional championship. However, Baldwin still hopes to win the tourney. His opponent is an average jouster.

On the first pass, Baldwin's opponent strikes hard; Baldwin nearly topples from the saddle [another re-roll].

The second round is a tie, with 2 solid hits. Baldwin is behind by 1 going into the final pass. His opponent's hit is light but Baldwin manages a solid shot. Tie! They now go to a tiebreaker. This time, however, Baldwin's hit is light while his opponent strikes solidly. Baldwin loses.

	1	2	3	TB	Total
Baldwin	1	2	2	1	6
Derfel	2	2	1	2	7

So no victory laurels for Baldwin. However, by making the semi-finals, he has qualified for the regional championship. Stay tuned to see how he does!

Moto-Jousting

Recently, Kaptain Kobold posted a set of jousting rules on his blog. I found the topic appealing so I decided to give them a go. However, I don't have any individually based knights. I improvised with some motorcycles from Microworld. Knightriders anyone?

At least I'm not the only one with unusual jousters.

Anyway, I gave Atteint! a go. Sir Baldwin (blue) met up with Sir Reynold (red).

In the first pass, Sir Reynold scored a glancing blow while Sir Baldwin missed. Baldwin did better in the second pass, scoring a hit, but Reynold broke a lance. In the final pass, Baldwin missed again (even though he focused on his aim!) while Reynold broke another lance! Final score was 5-1 in Reynold's favor.

In Atteint!, players try to raise their stats in Balance, Aim, and Force as they advance down the list. Each one plays a role so the player must manage the stats for the best effect. This requires a bit of thought for the player, a prime consideration for jousting rules otherwise they can just turn into a dice fest. Overall, the rules worked fine given their design goals. I just felt that it was a bit too much management for a lazy, solo gamer like me. ;)

I decided to work up my own, lazy gamer set of jousting rules. I dispensed with the stat management process. Instead, knights gained a bonus if they met the opponent on the opponent's side of the field. I then rolled to see if they hit and the effect of the hit. Very simple stuff. To add an element of decision making, I designated one knight as my PC and gave him 2 re-rolls to use per joust. Given that a joust consists of 3 passes, judicious use of re-rolls will be crucial.

I ran a few jousts with my rules.

1. Sir Baldwin unhorsed his opponent in the first pass and then managed an easy 4-1 win.
2. Sir Caradoc (an experienced jouster) unhorsed Baldwin in the first pass and then broke a lance in the second. Down 5-2, Baldwin needed to unhorse Caradoc just to tie! Caradoc missed in the final pass; if only Baldwin could unhorse him! Baldwin's aim appeared to be off but he corrected at the last second (I used a re-roll). The lance shattered and Caradoc swayed in his seat. However, he managed to stay on the horse. Ohhh! Almost a glorious comeback. Alas, Baldwin loses 5-4.
3. Baldwin broke a lance in the first pass to take a 2-0 lead. Alas, Sir Durian the Stinky scored a solid hit in the second. Baldwin nearly fell but managed to stay in his seat (thanks to a timely re-roll). Alas, Baldwin missed on the final pass and was knocked from his horse. He loses again, 5-2.

Even though my rules are probably far too simple for most people's tastes, they worked well for me. I was able to run 3 jousts in about 20 minutes, which makes a great filler game. Furthermore, the game created an enjoyable narrative, an important consideration for a blogger! I expect to dabble some more.

Delivery Failure

Once again, a Courier and its trike escort are trying to outrace a pack of raiders. This time, a motorcycle with a machine-gun armed sidecar joins the chase.

The chase is on! The Courier and escort (blue) are being swarmed by the raiders.

The machine gun motorcycle takes out the escort. A trike gets ahead of the Courier while a hot rod threatens its rear.

Surrounding the Courier, the raiders pour shot into the blue car, causing it to wreck.

Another short but entertaining pursuit.

Speed Demon

At least the latest rules were speedy.

After my previous experiment, I was poking around for inspiration. I took a second look at Thunder Road (specifically the rules which can be found here).

I found the rules mechanics to be quite interesting. A car may move D6 spaces. What is interesting is that a players rolls dice for all his/her cars at once, and then assigns dice to specific vehicles. I like this because it adds a little bit of tactics to the movement roll. I decided to experiment with a similar rule. I added modifiers due to vehicle speed (e.g. trikes and hot rods get +1) , driving off-road, and damage. Since my board is not as long as Thunder Road's, I opted to halve the result.

In this experiment, a Courier and escort (blue trike) are chased by 3 raiders. The middle two rows are considered road (below, all vehicles except the bottom car are on the road.

A raider hot rod rams the escort, but the trike maintains control.

The Courier blasts the hot rod, causing it to wreck. Meanwhile, the escort is run off the road.

The Courier revs his engines and pulls away from the pursuit. The escort takes out a raider trike with a blast of shot.

And then does the same to the last raider.

In all, the game took a speedy 5 minutes!

Clearly, I need to play around with the combat rules. I am trying to minimize record-keeping and did not want to track damage points. Clearly I overdid it. More on that in a future post.

By the way, I made some progress painting the minis!